Catholic priest accused of sexual assault fathered children of victims, court hears
A Roman Catholic priest with links to Texas and Louisiana who is facing criminal charges for allegedly abusing his position of authority within the church to pursue sex with vulnerable women fathered at least two children with victims of his behavior, authorities have alleged.
DNA evidence presented at the hearing concluded there was a more than 99.99% chance that Odiong was the “father of offspring who was created as a direct result of [a] sexual assault … committed against a known survivor” in the US.
Officials also made reference to a second child fathered by Odiong – a minor the Guardian has reason to believe is living in Nigeria. Both children, younger than 18, were born during Odiong’s career in the priesthood, which began in the 1990s and saw lengthy stretches under the command of Catholic church officials in Texas’s capital, Austin, and adjacent Louisiana’s best-known city, New Orleans.
Odiong, 55, is facing a total of five charges of sexual assault in the first degree and two more such counts in the second degree in connection with three separate women. DeLange testified that he had confirmed nine alleged victims of Odiong’s across the US and abroad – and had two others that he had identified as recently as Tuesday morning. There is no indication that any of the three women at the center of the charges against Odiong are the mothers of his children.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024...il-hearing
A Roman Catholic priest with links to Texas and Louisiana who is facing criminal charges for allegedly abusing his position of authority within the church to pursue sex with vulnerable women fathered at least two children with victims of his behavior, authorities have alleged.
DNA evidence presented at the hearing concluded there was a more than 99.99% chance that Odiong was the “father of offspring who was created as a direct result of [a] sexual assault … committed against a known survivor” in the US.
Officials also made reference to a second child fathered by Odiong – a minor the Guardian has reason to believe is living in Nigeria. Both children, younger than 18, were born during Odiong’s career in the priesthood, which began in the 1990s and saw lengthy stretches under the command of Catholic church officials in Texas’s capital, Austin, and adjacent Louisiana’s best-known city, New Orleans.
Odiong, 55, is facing a total of five charges of sexual assault in the first degree and two more such counts in the second degree in connection with three separate women. DeLange testified that he had confirmed nine alleged victims of Odiong’s across the US and abroad – and had two others that he had identified as recently as Tuesday morning. There is no indication that any of the three women at the center of the charges against Odiong are the mothers of his children.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024...il-hearing
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
